Government/Politics - 320. page

Chinese Communist Party Central Politburo conducted 2008’s eighth group study for the Politburo on September 28. The agenda was focused on the study of Chinese-style socialist theoretical system. Hu Jintao chaired the study. Hu emphasized that in today’s China, continuing Chinese-style socialist theoretical system is truly following Marxism. Hu pointed out that the Party committees at all levels must use the Chinese-style socialist theoretical system to arm the Party and educate the people, take the work as a long term task and frequent event, and implement the work systematically. Central Party School professor Yan Shuhan and professor Qin Xuan also lectured in the group study.

Former Prime Minister Li Peng made his first public appearance on September 25 and 26 since his last appearance in October 2007. Li was riding in a China made high speed train from Beijing to Tianjin. Li was said to be healthy and energetic. There have been rumors and speculations about Li’s health condition. Li’s last public appearance was at the opening ceremony of Chinese Communist Party’s 17th Congress in October 2007. He has been missing from political events this year including the Political Consultative Conference, 11th National People’s Conference, opening ceremony of the Olympic game as well as memorial service for Hua Guofeng, the Former President of China.

China released a revised list of items subject to export controls, effective November 1, 2008. The list released on September 25, 2008 covers 85 categories including agriculture, coal mining and washing, textiles, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, telecommunication equipment, computers and other electronics, heath products and others. The list contains 150 kinds of technology. 33 of them are totally banned from export while 117 are subject to export restrictions. National security and public interest have been cited as the guiding principle in formulating the list. The September 25 list is a revision of the December 2001 list.

In his greeting letter to the annual conference of Internet Society of China, Zhang Dejiang, the Vice-premier, gave party’s political guidance to the members of the Internet Society. He hope that the internet industry shall “hold high the great banner of socialism with Chinese characteristics; Strengthening the ideological and moral construction under the guidance of theories by Den Xiaoping and the ‘three representatives’”.

The root cause of high administration expenditure lies in the Chinese system and a deep-down system reform is the only way to resolve the problem, said the People’s Daily website. Major administrative and functional coordination is implemented by government or quasi-government entities that extend their control throughout the country via various layers of government entities. Centralized system brings weak local governments that are derivative of the central government. Too many layers of government also contribute to the high administrative cost of the government.

September 9 marked the 32nd anniversary of the death of Mao Zedong, the former Chairman and idol of China. Chinese state media had little coverage and remained low key on the anniversary of Mao’s death. Mao’s name has apparently been one of the sensitive names about which the government discourages the open discussion. One posting on the issue was found on house.focus.cn titled: “Chinese people will never forget Mao Zedong”. But when the posting was opened, a message jumped out: “this posting has been deleted after inspection.”